Bug#723721: gnome-terminal: colors are swapped

[Simon McVittie]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2014 at 12:16:49 +0200, folkert wrote:
> > > Black and white are swapped.
> > > If a program (eg an ncurses application) selects black, then gnome-terminal draws with white instead.
> > 
> > Osamu Aoki merged this with #721489, but I'm not so sure that it's actually
> > the same issue.
> 
> Unfortunately I switched to xfce so I can't test anything

When gnome-terminal 3.12.3-2 (fixing #721489) reaches your mirror, it
should be possible to install and use it under any desktop environment.
Run "gnome-terminal" from the Xfce terminal if you don't see it in
your menus.

> > Are you sure the program is selecting black, and not "the default colour"?
> > The two are separate, and there are different terminal escapes to
> > use them. Most terminals have white as their default foreground and black
> > as their default background (e.g. xterm), but gnome-terminal has its defaults
> > the other way round.
> 
> ...that would explain it. But from a programming point of view it is
> counter-intuitive imho.

There's nothing to say that every terminal must be white-on-black.
If you turn off "Use system colours", gnome-terminal has options
that include white-on-black, green-on-black, black-on-white,
and even black-on-light-yellow (presumably some people find that
easier to read).

Which curses application had this symptom?

    S